


The Talent Show

by the_space_princess



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:20:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28386885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_space_princess/pseuds/the_space_princess
Summary: Originally posted on Tumblr under lukeorangebeanie! OG Note: SO I HAD THIS IDEA ON THE WAY HOME. I was struggling all day with the AU prompt, and I was thinking “Well, maybe I’ll just do some headcanons…” And then on my way home, I’m listening to the soundtrack, and it just CAME TO ME. A talent show. A TALENT SHOW. The big AU part is that this is a ‘The Guys Are Alive the Same Time As Julie’ - so born around the same time she was, and they’re 17 year olds in 2020. They go to the same school, they’re in the music program with her, and Double Trouble and Sunset Curve are RIVALS. And then… well, you’ll have to read the fic to see! I’m staying on brand, and this is mostly from Luke’s perspective, but I’m back to using third person, so there’s a bit of Julie in there, too. :3
Relationships: Flynn & Julie Molina, Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Comments: 10
Kudos: 97





	1. Chapter 1

He was just so smug. And she hated it. Julie and Flynn had been working hard on their song for the talent show, had made it through the first rounds of judging, and they had been so excited to do this. And then Luke and his posse had come out, laughing and high fiving and giving them big smirks as they passed by and gloated that they had also made it to the show. Julie just glared, crossing her arms. This was hard enough… now they had to compete with the rock machine that was Sunset Curve. All their gigs had basically been sold out since they started playing around town, and everyone talked about them non-stop. The guys were always posing for pictures and signing autographs, and it made Julie so mad.

“Girl, you better cool off. You’re melting the lockers,” Flynn told her, and she looked at her best friend and shook her head.

“Why do they even need to enter the talent show! They’re already super popular!” she said, waving her arms in the air in frustration. “We deserve this… they can’t even give us this!”

“They barely know we exist, Jules. Besides… we just need to keep practicing! We will demolish them on show night! Okay?”

Julie sighed, but she nodded her head. “Okay. Alright, fine. Let’s go rehearse. We have two weeks, so this better be perfect!” she said, leading Flynn away from the gym.

—-

“Alright, guys! This is our chance… The talent show usually has some local managers and music execs sneaking in. The school’s music program is pretty well known, and we need this chance to show what we can do,” Luke said, later that evening in the garage where he practiced with Reggie and Alex.

“Right. We just have to compete with Double Trouble. Did you see the look Julie Molina was giving us earlier? If she had laser eyes, we’d all be like… cut in half,” Reggie said, shaking his head and frowning.

“Psh. Whatever, she can sulk. We’re here to rock and get a manager, and then…” Luke sighed, trailing off.

“The Orpheum,” Alex finished, nodding his head. “The big dream…”

“We’ve been working so hard for this! We can’t stop now! So, come on. Let’s pick a song…” Luke waved at them, and then opened his notebook, flipping through so they could look at their songs.

—-

The next two weeks were hectic for everyone. Between actual school stuff to do, and getting in rehearsals for the talent show, the teenagers barely had time for anything else. The day of the big show, though, brought bad news for Double Trouble.

“Flynn! Are you serious? Strep throat and an ear infection?” Julie asked, her phone pressed to her ear. When her bestie had missed the first couple of periods, she had called during a break. “I know… I know… I can hear that you have no voice… And your mom was right to keep you home… I’m sorry, it’s just… the show is tonight…” Sighing heavily, she glanced around. “It’s okay, Flynn. It is… maybe… I’ll go up by myself… I’ll think about it. But I have to go and get to class, okay? Okay, bye…”

—-

He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop… but she’d been right around the corner when he was trying to get to his next class through a shortcut. He frowned when he heard her side of the conversation, and hid as she left. Double Trouble was about to become a solo act… Maybe, she had said. But he knew that Julie didn’t like to perform alone. It was always her and Flynn. Everytime she had to do a solo project, she got so nervous. The last time, she’d barely touched the keys to the piano before she had bolted.

He bit his lip, then heard the bell, so he rushed off to class. But he couldn’t concentrate on anything else…

It was a dilemma. Because he knew that Julie was talented, and she had been so determined to do this talent show. Now she was likely not going to perform…

When school was done, he gathered the boys and had a chat with them in a corner of the gym. They’d already moved their stuff there in preparation for the show, so they stood next to it, glancing around as the seats began to fill. He was super lucky that the guys were with him, that he knew they’d have his back. He grinned at them and nodded, and then heard a commotion backstage. He glanced at his friends, and Reggie gave a nod, and they headed back there.

“I can’t do this without Flynn! I’m sorry… I… I guess I’m backing out,” Julie was saying to Mrs. Harrison, who looked rather disappointed.

“Miss Molina, we’ve been preparing for this show for weeks. And… I know you aren’t fond of solo performances, but if you would just–”

“No,” Julie cut her off. “No. I can’t… Really, I’m sorry…” She dropped her eyes, turning and finally seeing him and the guys. “Great…” she muttered.

“We’ll perform with you,” Luke blurted out.

“What?” That had her attention. She blinked, looking between them.

“Yeah, we want to,” Reggie said.

“You’re really talented, Julie,” Alex told her.

“Look… I… I didn’t mean to, but I overheard you earlier on the phone with Flynn… it’s super bad luck and bad timing, but we’ll do it. We’ll perform with you. We can do that, right Mrs. Harrison?” Luke asked, turning to look at the teacher.

The woman hesitated, looking between them. Then she threw her hands up. “Fine! Fine. You all figure it out… I’ll rearrange a few acts, and give you the last slot. That should give you time to work out what you’re doing…” she told them, then turned to leave.

“You don’t have to do this. Why are you doing this?” Julie asked, looking at him with confusion on her face.

He stepped forward, getting a little closer to her. “Because you’re talented. And you deserve to show it. And we want to help,” he told her.

“You barely know me,” she said, shaking her head.

“So? You love music. We love music. That’s all that matters,” he replied, shrugging his shoulders. “So… you wanna be an honorary member of Sunset Curve tonight?”

She was quiet for a moment, looking between them. He heard Reggie give a few quiet ‘pleases’, and then she inhaled deeply. “O… kay. Okay. Yeah. But just for tonight! Flynn and I have Double Trouble,” she told them.

“Of course! No problem… So, we have a couple songs that could work, unless… you had an idea,” Luke said, grinning at her.

Julie shifted on her feet, her eyes dropping. “Well… uh… We were supposed to do this song… I wrote it with my mom… before she…”

Oh. Luke blinked, and glanced back to the guys. Alex’s shoulders slumped a bit, ever the empathetic one. Her mom had died a year ago. After that was when she stopped performing solo… “Yeah? Well, then it must be good. Give us a run down. You’re the boss,” he told her, turning to look at her and giving her an encouraging smile.

She smiled back at him, and then they got to work.

—-

They hadn’t had a lot of time, but they had just enough that it worked. Luke had faith in himself and in Reggie and Alex. They were good, and learning a song in just a couple of hours may have been crazy, but they did it. Luke was confident, but he could tell that Julie was still nervous.

He moved, stepping in front of her pacing. “Hey. Stop. We got this,” he told her, giving her a smile.

“Don’t. Don’t do that,” she told him, stepping back.

He blinked. “Do what?” he asked her, tilting his head.

“That! Be all… you. You’re always so smug,” she said.

Laughing, he reached up to scratch the back of his neck. “What? You think I’m smug?” he asked her.

“Yes! You’re always just… smiling and grinning like that,” Julie told him, waving a hand at him.

“This is just my face. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, shrugging up his shoulder. “Look… we do have this, okay? You’re talented, and you did really well with teaching us the song… Just embrace the awesome!”

She took a deep breath, and then another, and then nodded her head. “You’re right. Okay! Let’s do this!” she said, bouncing in place.

“Heck yes!” he said, grinning wide again.

There were two more acts until it was their turn, and they waited as patiently as possible. When it was finally their turn, they got their stuff onto the stage, did a quick sound check, and then Luke stood back and turned to look at Julie. He gave her a nod, and a small smile, and he saw her put her hands on the keyboard. She glanced up again, but he gave another nod. “You got this,” he whispered.

She started to play.

“Don’t blink, no I don’t want to miss it…” she sang, her hands moving expertly over the keys.

Luke grinned, watching her as she continued, and they let her sing into the chorus, hearing her voice get louder, more confident. Then Alex joined in with his drums, and Reggie a moment later on bass.

Luke shook his arms out a bit, and then grabbed his guitar and began to play, echoing her voice. Then he moved up to his mic, inhaling deeply before he began to sing. “I’m goin’ out of my mind!”

The song was fun, and they all had a good time playing it with her. And Julie seemed to have fun, too, even bouncing out from behind her keyboard at one point, smiling at him as they got near the end of the song. The audience was eating it up, and he moved forward to share the mic with her for the last round of the chorus. Then they stood there, grinning at the crowd before they took a bow. He’d say that the night was quite a success.


	2. You Know All My Deep Dish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HELLO! It's PART 2! This is the idea I had WAY BACK after I finished the first part, and now it's here... Say hello to Talent Show AU Flying Solo scene! :3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TEN POINTS (that don't really matter) to anyone who can spot the references I snuck in here. There is at least one JatP reference, and about two from one of my favorite movies. Seriously, if you spot it and guess it, I'll love you forever! <3

The only thing worse than one girl crying was _two_ girls crying.

Which is exactly what Luke, Alex, and Reggie managed to walk into when they went back to the gym the next day to pick up their stuff. Julie and Flynn were standing there, basically staring each other down, and Luke could tell that they’d been arguing.

“And I know you’re hooking up with Luke,” Flynn accused, and that’s when he decided to step in.

“Whoa! Whoa… hey, we are not… nope,” he said, walking towards them. “That’s not a thing, at all. We helped Julie with the talent show, that’s it!”

“Oh my god! Of course you’re here right now!” Julie exclaimed, turning to face him. “I don’t need your help, can you just back off!”

That kinda stung, and he wasn’t sure why - he’d have to figure it out later. “Okay! Chill! I’m just trying to help!” he told them. “What’s going on?”

“What’s going on is that I’m done!” Flynn said, shaking her head and turning to walk out of the gym. Julie tried to follow her, calling her name, but Flynn ignored her.

Luke watched her walk back towards them, her head hung as tears fell.

“Julie… I’m so sorry,” he told her, stepping toward her, but she put a hand up and glared at him.

“It’s your fault!” she exclaimed. “If I hadn’t let you convince me to sing with you…”

“Hey! We were trying to help! How many times do I have to say that?” he replied, then he shook his head. “If this is what I get for trying…” He turned to walk back to Reggie and Alex, who had stepped back to stay out of the argument. “Come on, boys, let’s get our stuff and go.”

They start to pack up, Alex’s drums taking the longest. As they start to stack boxes, Luke hears a small noise, and looks up to see Julie standing there, wringing her hands. “I’m sorry,” she blurted out, her eyes still watery. “I’m really sorry. I was upset, but it wasn’t… it wasn’t nice of me to take it out on you. I could have said no when you asked, and I know that… The thing with Flynn isn’t your fault. But.. but she’s my best friend…” She blinked, and a tear fell, and he knew… he knew then that he had to help fix things.

He glanced over to Alex and Reggie. The drummer gave a small shrug and a motion with his hand. Reggie gave a nod, looking back to Julie. Luke took a second, and then he turned to her, taking a few steps closer. “Julie. I… we… We want to help, however we can. Flynn is mad that you played with us…?”

“I… it’s a little bit that. I think it’s mostly because she's afraid… I mean, everyone has been talking about our performance, how good it was, and I’ve had a couple people ask when we’re going to play together again,” Julie told him.

“Really?” Luke asked, his eyebrows raising in surprise. “Oh… I mean… you said it was a one time thing…”

“It… it was supposed to be! I tried to tell Flynn that, but she won’t listen,” she said, shaking her head a bit. “I can’t lose her…”

Luke felt his heart breaking. He didn’t know what he would do if he and Alex ever fought badly enough that their friendship would be in jeopardy, or even him and Reggie. He rubbed at the back of his neck. “What can we do to help?” he asked her. “This is… sort of our fault, so we want to help fix it. Just… you’re the boss! Tell us what to do.”

She looked between the three, and then nodded her head, a determined look on her face. “Where are you taking that stuff?”

“Oh, uh… we borrow a friend’s garage…” Alex said.

“Well… I have a place we can practice,” she told them, making Luke raise his eyebrows.

————

About an hour later, they were set up in a rather sweet studio space (that looked a bit like it had quite a layer of dust, but Luke wasn’t going to mention that out loud). Julie was set up behind a keyboard, and she had a piece of paper clutched in her hand. “So…”

Luke stood with his guitar, and he walked over to hold his hand out. “What is that?” he asked.

She was hesitant to hand the paper over, he could tell, but he gave her a smile and she finally set it in his hand. He unfolded it and looked it over, a smile breaking out over his face. “Julie! This is so rad! … I think I can work with this,” he told her, but then moved back, going to the piano to use it as a table as he spread it out. His fingers tapped on the surface, and he muttered under his breath as he looked the paper over again.

“Oh, great, you’ve started him into songwriting mode,” Alex said from behind his drums. He hit a few, making a beat for a few seconds.

“I think that’s the point,” Julie responded, waving a hand in the air. “Kind of want to show my best friend that I’m sorry…”

“Oh, yeah, good point,” Alex said.

Reggie had gone over to look over Luke’s shoulder, and he tilted his head. “Hey Julie… when you say deep dish, are you talking, like… pizza?” he asked.

Julie giggled, shaking her head. “No, Reggie! I mean, like… secrets,” she said, smiling at him.

“Ooohhh…” Reggie replied, nodding slowly.

“Sh!” Luke waved a hand at him, and then straightened up. “Okay! How about this…” He cleared his throat and then sang one of the lines. “ _My life, my life would be real low, zero, flying solo…_ ”

“Ohh oh!” Reggie added.

“Reggie! Yes, that’s good!” Luke told him, snapping his fingers, then he turned to Julie and grinned.

“Yeah! That could work…” she told him. “Uhm… I may have had some piano chords in my head, too…” She lifted her hands, and started to play.

Luke nodded his head, and then he moved to strum on his guitar.

Thirty minutes later, they had a pretty solid grasp on the song. “I just need to get Flynn here,” Julie said, tapping away on her phone.

“Well, we can keep working if you want to go find her?” Luke said.

“Yeah… okay… Just… stay out here!” Julie told them, giving them a pointed look before she left the studio.

Luke chuckled, and then turned to Reggie and Alex. “This is fun, right?”

“Yeah! Lots of fun… you’re having quite a bit of fun,” Alex said, tapping his foot on the bass pedal.

“What are you talking about?” Luke asked, shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders.

“Dude. You’re looking at Julie with heart eyes. And… you totally had heart eyes for her on stage during the talent show. No wonder Flynn thought you two were… hooking up, or whatever,” Alex said.

“I do not!” Luke exclaimed. “And we aren’t! She barely gives me the time of day!”

“Uh huh. Keep telling yourself that,” Reggie told him, with a grin on his face.

“Oh my god, both of you shut up,” Luke said, and then the studio doors open. Julie leads Flynn inside.

“You didn’t tell me they were gonna be here!” Flynn said, stopping just inside the doors.

“I know, because I knew you wouldn’t come in here! They’re helping me… they want to apologize, too!” Julie replied, tugging on Flynn’s hand. “Please, Flynn…”

Flynn gave a glare, and Luke averted his eyes for a second, because damn. She could cut right through metal if her gaze was a laser… “Seriously… we offered to help, and we are sorry. We aren’t trying to… steal Julie. You think we’re bad guys, but we aren’t,” he said, finally looking back at her.

Flynn sighed, and crossed her arms. “I’m only here because you said you wrote me a song…”

“I did! We did… But it’s from my poem that I wrote about you… a couple months after Mom died… when you were there for me through that,” Julie said.

Luke hadn’t known that, and he shuffled on his feet as he dropped his eyes, feeling like he was trying to give them a moment.

“Oh… Jules…” Flynn breathed out.

“Yeah. So… Sit! Right over there… Reggie likes to really jam, I don’t want you to get in his way,” Julie told her, directing her to a chair. Then she sat behind her keyboard, and took a deep breath. Luke rolled his shoulders, getting ready, and he heard Julie start in on the beat pad. It had been her idea to add something that was a little bit Flynn to the song.

Then Julie began to sing. “ _If I leave you on a bad note, Leave you on a sad note, Guess that means I'm buying lunch that day…_ ” She got through the first verse, and then he and guys started to play for the chorus. They stayed in the background, adding in harmonies and small bits of vocals, letting Julie take the lead and sing her heart out for Flynn.

Luke was amazed and awed. And the lyrics must have hit home for Flynn, because she was crying, and she got up to dance with Julie. When the song finished, they were hugging tight, and he was smiling.

Flynn turned to look at them. “Thanks. For helping Julie with this,” she told them.

“Of course,” he replied, shrugging his shoulders. “She asked, and we couldn’t say no.”

“You couldn’t say no,” Alex muttered, making Luke shoot him a glare.

“Anyways! We can get this stuff out of your garage…” Luke said, pulling his guitar off and reaching for his case.

“Wait!” Flynn said, and she looked at Julie. “You guys sound really good together. Really.”

“Flynn… what are you saying?” Julie asked.

“I’m saying… They are joining your band! And I’m going to be your manager and social media team, all in one!” Flynn replied, grinning wide and crossing her arms.

“Her band?” Luke asked, pointing to Julie. “We already have a band…”

“I said what I said!” Flynn exclaimed, glaring at him.

Luke held his hands up. “Okay! Alright… Julie’s band… that is… if she wants us to…?”

Julie turned to look at him, and then she looked to Alex and Reggie, who gave her big smiles. “Yeah! Yes! Let’s… let’s do this!” she told them.

“Yes! Rad!” Luke pumped his fists.

“Which means… you guys can leave this stuff here! We’ll start practice tomorrow after school! Luke, I have some song ideas we can talk about?” Julie asked him, clasping her hands together.

“Oh… uh… yeah! Yeah, that sounds great!” he told her.

“Great! See you tomorrow, then!” Julie said, then she looped her arm through Flynn’s and led her out of the garage.

“Dude… dude!” Alex said, poking Luke with a drumstick.

“Ow! What?” Luke said, swatting at his friend.

Alex shook his head. “Nevermind. Come on, let’s get out of here and get something to eat!”

“Hot dogs?!” Reggie asked.

“No! The last time we ate hot dogs I was sick for a week… Pizza,” Luke said. He took his guitar off, and they made sure everything was set aside before they left, closing the door securely behind them.

The next day, Flynn had ‘Julie and the Phantoms’ posters put up all over school. When asked about it, she told Luke that if they were to ever hurt Julie, then they would be living up to the ‘phantoms’ part of the name.


End file.
